"I analyzed the impact of the last four Windows launches and found no negative correlation between them and Mac sales," said Brian Marshall of Broadpoint AmTech. "In fact, [Microsoft's launches] almost act like a delayed accelerant on Mac sales."

After comparing Mac sales with the launches of Windows 98 in June 1998, Windows 2000 (February 2000), Windows XP (October 2001) and Vista (January 2007), Marshall found that in all but the case of Windows 2000, Mac sales either increased or stayed steady.

Stephen Baker, an analyst with retail research firm NPD Group, echoed those comments today. "I think we'll see a $799 MacBook and a $999 MacBook in the next few days," Baker said Monday. "I can't see how Apple wouldn't go there."

Apple's current low-end notebook is the white-cased MacBook, which lists for $999, and is slightly discounted online by others, such as Amazon, which sells the laptop for $978.

Apple frequently introduces new products or tweaked existing lines on Tuesdays, something that has fueled speculation that the company could unveil new iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook models as soon as tomorrow.

"I’ve been thinking about writing a start-to-finish Django tutorial, creating a simple CMS for a hierarchical web site going from installation of Django on a clean system all the way to a CMS that automatically uploads web pages to a remote web server."